By Josh Williams
Marvel has seemingly strived to capture the magic behind the idea of the shared universe. Each installation of their films falls under the umbrella of the "Marvel Cinematic Universe" or MCU for short. These films take place in the same general location, at the same general time, and with the same general characters. Now, while this seems like something that would be particularly easy to produce, other studios have unfortunately found out that it is not that simple. Marvel has found a massive amount of success in something that competing studios just cannot seem to get their hands on. But what happens when over the course of ten years, the story that you have been building towards finally prepares to see its end? With the release of last year’s "Avengers: Infinity War" and now "Avengers: Endgame", the overarching story that Marvel has been building towards is finally coming to a dramatic close. While Marvel sees a tremendous amount of success with a majority of their films, the Avengers titles are the ones that always seem to do the best. Whether it’s the big action set pieces, the drama, or just getting to see all of our beloved heroes on screen at the same time, the Avengers films tend to perform rather well. Most recently with "Avengers: Infinity War", Marvel crafted a perfect blockbuster. While it saw some criticism, it did achieve some things within their set universe that I believe are truly outstanding. “Infinity War” has some of the best performances in any Marvel movie, some of the most exciting action sequences in any Marvel movie, and an ending that knocks the wind out of you. So without further adieu, here are some things that I think make "Avengers: Infinity War" one of the greatest blockbusters in recent memory. 1. A Perfectly Balanced Ensemble
It was beyond impressive what we saw Joss Whedon do with the number of characters he had to wrangle in the first "Avengers", but Anthony and Joe Russo are working with almost triple the number of actors in this film, with an even larger number of extras. While there are obviously some characters who get a little more screen time than others (I.E. Thor, Gamora, Iron Man, etc.), just about every hero we've grown to love over the last decade gets a shining moment. While some characters get to show off a bit more range with their scenes, like Rocket and Thor in the spaceship, Star-Lord, and Gamora on Knowhere, and Iron Man and Spider-Man during the climax, everybody gets to have something to chew on, whether it be dramatic or comedic. Danai Gurira's brief performance after the loss of Black Panther is a massive emotional gut punch and her reaction is only shown for a maybe seconds, but we still feel the massive impact of how her character feels in that very moment.
2. A Memorable Performance From Josh Brolin
I kind of feel bad for the actors playing the heroes in Marvel films during 2018, because that was the year for villains. The year exploded with easily one of the greatest villain performances to date with Michael B. Jordan's Erik Killmonger. The trend continued with Josh Brolin's Thanos and wrapped itself up with Hannah John-Kamen's Ghost. In the case of “Infinity War”, Brolin as the self-proclaimed prophet, hellbent on balancing the universe, is one of the most underrated performances from a comic book movie. Much like Andy Serkis in the "The Planet of the Apes" franchise, the way that Brolin manages to get his subtle facial expressions to shine through an entirely motion-captured CG performance is absolutely outstanding. He delivers his dialogue with grace and fluidity. Rarely do we see Brolin speak out of anger. He is always calm and collected, at peace with the decisions he is making. The emotion that shines through his giant purple face is something I often find myself thinking about: How he was so perfect at making his facial, vocal, and physical cues known through the technology. Thanks to Josh Brolin, Thanos was saved from just being another typical "I want to end the entire world" type of villain. He brought balance to the stereotype if you will.
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